Underrated
This film is seriously underrated. For a film that is 70 years old it is still entertaining. I wish more people knew about it.
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I don't agree that it's "underrated" at all -- it's almost universally praised as one of the greatest supernatural thrillers of all time, perhaps the greatest (as I also believe it to be).
But I do agree it's less well-known than it should be. It was once much better known but the passage of time and the output of lots of inferior "ghost films" have obscured this masterpiece, as has its unaccountably late appearance on DVD (less than a year ago from this post -- it came out in October 2013).
Hopefully some showings on TCM and its relatively inexpensive DVD and Blu-ray releases from Criterion will make The Uninvited more widely available, known -- and appreciated.
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Yes, the release I referred to was the 2013 US DVD. I didn't take into account that you're in the UK, Grayseph! I also bought the 2012 UK release the year before the Criterion edition came out in the States. A late DVD arrival in both countries.
The Uninvited does suffer from the fact that it's currently 70 years old, vs. 53 for The Innocents, 51 for The Haunting and 34 for The Changeling, all of which also seem newer (in style) than does TU. I've never been a huge fan of The Innocents but do very much like the other two films. But as I said, The Uninvited isn't so much underrated as it is less well-known. When people do see it, they rate it highly.
But most newer "haunted house" films are just terrible, relying on special effects, gore and shocks rather than genuine scares, eerie atmosphere and suspense. Even a film like Poltergeist, which so many people seem so enamored of, starts out well but soon sinks into the usual vacuous effects-laden eye-candy, plus an idiotic ending, typical of modern "ghost" movies (including remakes of The Haunting and House on Haunted Hill). In my view, over the past 30 years only Ghost Story (1981) and The Others (2001) have been worthy successors of those earlier films.
I happen to be showing The Uninvited at my weekly classic movie night this very evening and will be interested in seeing the audience's reaction.
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Well, The Uninvited went over very well with my audience. Two people who have an aversion to "ghost movies" left but everyone else stayed, including the wife of one of the men who left! People liked it very much. Score another one for TU!
Oh, I realized I was preaching to the converted (you, my friend) in my disparaging remarks on more recent "shockers", as Ray Milland called them. That's why I felt at ease voicing such opinions! You're quite right, The Others is indeed reminiscent of The Innocents, in a kind of "inverted" way as you so aptly put it. Yet as I wrote I liked the former film, but the latter one just leaves me indifferent. Although I would call The Innocents a good film -- I don't dislike it -- for some reason it just never intrigued me the way these other films do. Over here, Criterion, which released The Uninvited last October, will be issuing The Innocents on September 23. I intend to buy it and watch it again to see if I feel differently about it. It's been years since I saw it, so perhaps additional wisdom will accompany additional age! (Which could, I suppose, mean I'd like it even less!) Either way I'll let you know.
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I wish that a version of The Innocents had been done in the 1920s or 1930s. It would have been a much more memorable film. I wouldn't say that the 1960s version is a bad film, but I forgot it shortly after I saw it. Somehow the much earlier thrillers stick longer with me.
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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen
It's been many years since I've watched The Innocents so in a month or so I'll let you know my latest opinion!
The age group for my films is mainly 50s into 70s, though sometimes, such as last night, I get some 30s and 40s. One problem is that as we meet on Thursday nights it's hard for a lot of younger people to get away from work and attend. (This is at a vacation community on a place called Fire Island, off the south shore of Long Island, New York; you may have heard of it.) But you see, I never announce ahead of time what the film will be. I just give a couple of cryptic hints. People seem to like the guessing game, but I've thought about telling them ahead of time, which I did do very occasionally in the past. This is the 13th year I've been doing this. Even last night, people have been telling me to turn professional...though what form that could possibly take is never explained!
I have a number of Region 2 DVDs from the UK (my wife is English, and there are a lot of R2 titles unavailable here, including even a few American films), and a couple of these are BFI releases -- including the original Japanese version of Godzilla, of all things. In my very limited experience BFI does do a good job with its releases, though from what I've seen it seems Criterion does a lot more -- sometimes even including the novel from which a film is derived! Still, many of their extras are a bit of overkill, I think. But the quality of their restorations is terrific, the best I've ever seen, even better than BFI.
I agree with you about modern haunted house films. Although in my opinion, "modern" haunted house films are any haunted house films released after about 1950. Mysteries and horror were done best in the 1920s and 1930s, with some good ones (like this film) done in the forties.
There are some exceptions, like The Others. Some other films which I've seen haven't appealed to me at all.
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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen
Of course, most 20s films would be silents, which may be good for a "haunted house" or ghost movie but perhaps not so good for a standard thriller. I could see The Innocents as a silent. The Haunting and The Uninvited too, even Carnival of Souls. But definitely not The Shining.
I think mysteries were done best in the 40s, though the 30s and 50s were good too. Horror, definitely the 30s. Ghost films like this -- supernatural thrillers, if you will -- were best in the 40s and those early 60s ones, which had a depth sadly lacking in most such films today.
I know of three silent mysteries:
The Bat
Midnight Faces
The Cat and the Canary
Also a few of the versions of Seven Keys to Baldpate are silent. Unfortunately, most of those are lost films. I saw the 1917 version on youtube.
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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen
I forgot to add to that last message that one of the most contemporary versions of Seven Keys to Baldpate was released in the early eighties as a movie titled House of the Long Shadows. I highly recommend it, mostly for Vincent Price's performance.
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JimHutton (1934-79) & ElleryQueen